Rajasthan (Part 1)

And so I realise that I have completely failed to write on this blog for almost three weeks. What a poor effort! I have no excuses, but I do have a reason: Rajasthan.

Rajasthan is the most touristed state in India, and appropriately so. Desert for the most part, it's an absolute riot of colours, smells, and experiences. This is the India you see in the tourism posters, and although the hordes of bumbag-wearing middle-aged rich Westerners (where I use "rich" to mean "those who can afford to eat more than twice a day") got wearisome quickly, it proved relatively easy to escape them and get lost in the place.

I woke up on New Year's Day, kicked open the train carriage door for some fresh air, and was greeted by a clear blue sky, desert green fields, and hills with rocks in them. After a dodgy experience in Chandigarh, this was soothing, to say the least. My impression of the state only improved from there, helped along by (relatively) friendly locals, fascinating desert scenery, and conditions that were much more amenable to photography. So, rather than try and do full justice to each of the places I've been to, I will do my best to summarise them in a few words and my favourite photos. Let's start with Jaipur.

Jaipur: the last in the unholy trinity of the Golden Triangle (Agra, Delhi, Jaipur - the India-in-ten-days trail), Jaipur swarms with tourists, touts, more touts, scammers, beggars, and thieves - and manages to remain a pretty cool place despite them. The City Palace is beautiful, the Royal Observatory (Jantar Mantar) fascinating, and Amber Fort stunningly imposing. Colours, colours, and more colours.













Next, we move (via overnight metre-gauge train) to Bikaner. Lying at the northern edge of the Great Thar Desert, this thriving frontier town can be summed up in three words: fun with camels. My first couple of days here saw me leaving on a camel safari through the dunes and some outlying settlements, and returning with serious saddlesores but great memories.













The day after, I managed to scam myself press access to the 2009 Bikaner Camel Festival. This meant three days of various camel-related activities: camel dancing, camel dressing, camel racing, even camel milking(!). Additionally, the local beauty/masculinity competitions provided plenty of lens fodder: beautiful Rajasthani girls and imposing, turbaned men with some of the biggest moustaches I have seen anywhere. Actually, I'm lying - they were the biggest moustaches I have seen anywhere.

















After another overnight train ride, this time made in a hideously drunken state, I wound up in Jaisalmer. One of the big tourist favourites, Jaisalmer is a sandstone fort rising stolidly from the dunes. It's charming, beautiful (especially at the sunset), and alive - the fort is still entirely inhabited and heavily populated, a situation that is causing slow decay among the foundations due to inadequate water infrastructure. Unfortunately, Jaisalmer is one of the most unpleasantly tout-ridden places I've yet encountered in India. That's not necessarily a problem, since most of them don't have the hard-sell chutzpah to harass you more than once, but it became a problem when a disagreement with a camel-safari tout led to me being unceremoniously ejected from my hotel.

It's still a lot of fun, though. Noisy fun - relations between India and Pakistan being what they are, it's a rare half-hour when at least one IAF jet doesn't scream up or down the border, only a few kilometres away.













Now, in the interest of not destroying everyone's download quota all at once, I'm going to pause and go and pack my bags. I'm in Udaipur currently, ready for a morning train to Ahmadabad, in Gujurat. More Rajasthani photos will follow soon.